1940: Palestine

Palestine is a British mandated territory in the Near East, consisting of two parts, the land west of the Jordan, or Palestine proper, which is under direct British administration and where the immigration of Jews is facilitated with a view to the building up of a Jewish national home, and the land east of the Jordan, or Transjordania, which represents an Arab principality under the rule of Emir Abdallah. Palestine had been, in the years from 1936-1939, the scene of a violent Arab national uprising against the British mandate and against the policy of establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine. With the proclamation of the Statement of Policy in May 1939, by the British government, the Arab unrest subsided. The Statement declared that it was not part of British policy for Palestine to become a Jewish state, as that would be contrary to British obligations to the Arabs under the mandate. The British government promised to establish within ten years an independent Arab state and to grant during the transitional period increasing participation of the population in the administration of the country. Jewish immigration was to be regulated in accordance with the policy, and the Statement promised especially to restrict the sale of Arab lands to Jews in certain areas.

The outbreak of the war in the fall of 1939 brought a strong British garrison to Palestine and acted generally as a factor in allaying all unrest. Of the promises of the Statement of Policy, those concerned with self-government, could not be carried through owing to war conditions, but the British government published at the end of February land regulations which prohibited the sale of land to Jews in the hill country of Palestine, with its predominantly Arab population, and restricted it in other parts of the country. In view of the fact that the reports of several expert commissions had indicated that, owing to the natural growth of the Arab population and the steady sale in recent years of Arab lands to Jews, the danger existed of the creation of a landless Arab population, and the government established three zones in Palestine. In Zone A, which included the hill country of Palestine and certain areas in the south where the land available was deemed insufficient for the support of the existing population, the transfer of land to non-Arabs was prohibited save in exceptional cases. In Zone B, which included the plains of Esdraelon and Jezreel, Eastern Galilee, the coastal plain between Haifa and Tantura and certain southern districts, transfer of land to a non-Arab demanded the sanction of the High Commissioner. This sanction will be granted when the transfer of land can be shown to be made either for the purpose of facilitating irrigation, or consolidating or expanding holdings already in the possession of non-Arabs, or if it is made for the purpose of enabling land held in undivided shares to be parceled or in furtherance of some special scheme of development in joint interests of both Arabs and Jews. All land not included in these two zones does not fall under any restriction. This land where transfer to Jewish owners can be carried through without any impediment includes the most important and most fertile parts of Palestine, all municipal areas, the Haifa industrial zone and the coastal plain between Tantura to a line well south of Jaffa.

These regulations of Feb. 28, 1940, were received with satisfaction by the Arabs, but led to violent demonstrations on the part of the Jews in Palestine. Large-scale demonstrations paraded through the streets of Jerusalem and of other cities with large Jewish populations, and ended in violent riots in Jerusalem at the beginning of March, when scores of Jewish demonstrators and British police were injured. The British Labor party opposed the restrictions in a motion before the House of Commons to censure the government, but this motion was defeated on March 6 by 292 to 129 votes, after Malcolm MacDonald, the Colonial Secretary, had pointed out that if the British government had not restricted the sale of land to Jews in Palestine, trouble would have broken out again and might have spread through the Arab world.

This restricting law left the zones where heretofore the Jews had been most active in their work of agricultural colonization open for their further settlement. The entirely non-restricted zone which comprises the most important lands has an extent of 1,300,000 dunam, of which 700,000 are owned by Jews. Zone B. in which acquisition of land is allowed with the consent of the High Commissioner, comprises 1,570,000 dunam, of which 530,000 are in Jewish possession. The restricted land included in Zone A comprises the least fertile parts of the Palestinian soil.

The entrance of Italy into the war, the abandonment of the struggle on the part of France, and the ensuing threatening inclusion of Palestine into the area of immediate warfare brought about a concentration of the attention of the whole population upon the new problems facing Palestine. With the cessation of the Mediterranean traffic, Palestine suffered economically, and the population, Jewish and Arab, had to adapt itself to the new conditions. Several times Italian bombing planes visited Palestine and demanded a heavy toll of life and material damage. The most important raids were one on Sept. 9 against the all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv, north of Jaffa, when mostly Jews were the sufferers, and on Sept. 22 against Haifa, when most of the victims were Arabs. The common danger and the common economic problems brought the Arab and Jewish populations closer together. On April 15 the High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, announced that he had secured government approval for assistance to the suffering citrus industry of Palestine, which in former years had occupied the leading position among all exports from the country, and which was now threatened with grave disaster. The war situation strained Palestine's financial resources. The Palestinian budget for the fiscal year running to March 31, 1941, was fixed at an expenditure of £9,659,877, the highest amount in the history of the country. But the country did not show a deficit, in view of the fact that the Palestine government had on April 1, 1940, a cash surplus fund of £3,400,000.

The number of Jewish immigrants during 1939 was estimated at 27,193, of whom 10,823 represented the so-called illegal immigration of refugees who had arrived without authority. The Palestinian government tried to stop illegal immigration into Palestine, but was not successful in that attempt. In April 1940, the government allowed the admission of 9,060 Jews for the following six months. The total number of Jewish immigrants into Palestine in the seven years from 1933 to 1939 amounted to 204,077, of whom 55,329 had come from Germany. (See also JEWS.) The extraordinary conditions of the war produced in Palestine widespread unemployment and much economic suffering. In view of these circumstances the Jewish National Council of Palestine decided at the end of November to create a United National Front to cope with the economic and political problems arising out of the situation.

On Dec. 27 the High Commissioner announced that no new immigration quota would be granted for the period of October 1940 to April 1941. In view of the existing travel difficulties only about 1,300 persons of those to whom immigration permits had been granted for the preceding six months' period had actually immigrated. With the very serious dimensions of unemployment among the Jewish population only replacements for those certificates granted in the preceding period could be given. According to government figures, 28,835 Jews had immigrated between April 1939 to the end of September 1940, while for the whole five years period from April 1939 to March 1944 a maximum of 75,000 had been allowed by the White Paper.

See also articles on ARCHAEOLOGY and ARCHITECTURE.